God Loves a Good Mind Game

LW - I had seen that on my read through and before that as well and I have heard it used as the basis for several rascist memes. Generally the accepted reading is that the first bit is a recap of the whole process and the the bit where Adam and Eve's creation is detailed is a later in depth exploration of the "them" mentioned.

Of course I have no stake in how it reads one way or the other. From my perspective it is pretty plainly an amalgamation of many accounts of the same creation story.

Well, I could debate a bunch of the conclusions that you came to, but what's the point?

I chalk it up to God had pretty crappy proofreaders....humans.

Mortality, I believe, came from the fruit of good and evil. Are Adam and Eve alive?

Actually if you see the Bible quotes above God pretty clearly states that eternal life comes from yet another tree that he won't allow them to eat from now that they figured out the tree of knowledge thing. This is the explicit reason he tosses their ass out of the garden and guards the gate.

Anything else and you have gone extra-canonical which is fine but at that point you can pretty much make up anything.

That seems to be the exact problem. When these texts were being copied and amended there were competeing scholars who each had their own versions of the Torah scrolls and had based their careers on their version being correct. When compromises had to be made for political reasons you sort of ended up with wierd bits and chunks from one being included while parts of another were exised etc... the end result is a text which doesn't hang together internally for even 3 pages.

Adam and Eve were set up. Don't push the button. The big button. The shiny red button. The glorious button.

Oops, you pushed the button, now you've gone and done it. No, really?

For there to be free will, somebody MUST screw up for screwing up to be an option. Otherwise you've just got a mechanist view of the universe, what with the omniscence and omnipotence.

They were 'tested' not 'set up'.  They knew everything they needed to know to pass.  It was an opportunity to do something great for all who would come after them, but they didn't.  If your parent lets you go to a party, and you drink yourself under the table, did they set you up to make a bad decision or did they give you a growth opportunity?

Anyway, about the 'mud people' and 'racists'... if the mud people were around before the flood, they weren't around after the flood, so they're not around now.  So there's still no reason to think there are people without souls around.

This is called "creating false ethical dilemnas" and it is among the shittier things one being can do to another. When you set it up under false conditions as well and then get called on it by your victim you tend to lose your moral authority over them.

Examples: Don't drink at the party or you'll become addicted to booze!

                Don't masturbate or you go blind/grow hair on your palms.

When people try the activity and the promised problem doesn't happen then anything useful and true you might have told them get lumped into the "bullshit" pile with the lie.

More like, "Don't get pregnant or you will have a baby!"

You don't have the baby right away, it takes time.  Just like God didn't say they would instantly die - just that they would die.  And they're dead.

Did you catch the bit about keeping them out of the garden so that they couldn't eat from the *other* tree? That why they died. So in essence it was "Don't eat from the tree of life or I will kill you by witholding vital things." That would have been honest though.

They couldn't very well obey him of their own free will if he didn't give them any commands.  And neither Eve nor Adam would have ever thought to eat of that tree without the serpent.

God doesn't lie, but he doesn't necessarily give the whole truth either.  Jesus spoke in parables, you know.  He could have just come out and said what the message was, but He didn't.

My, my, greywar, I am happy to see you are at it again. You are not the first reader of Gensis 1 to see the problems that this chaper and many other chapters offer. If you are looking for a perfect answer to all of these problems, you will be at it until the Second Coming. I have had grade school intelligent students ask me: How could the earth come before the sun? How could plants that live on photosynthesis grow before the sun appeared?

The Bible is not a book of science that tells us how in detail that God created all the earth. It just teaches a truth to guide our lives: That everything is created from God not how he did it. He did all out of love for us.

The early bible writers tried in their own human way to explain how they thought things came about. When I read the Bible, I try to read it critically but from the standpoint of what is the message here that will lead me to live a life reflective of the love God showed when he created such beauty and wonder in creation. I pray that like the protoypes of Adam of Eve, I won't screw it up by my selfish acts.

oleteach 

My problem Oleteach, is that people try to say that the Bible is all factual, not a sort of "guidebook how to be nice with some examples" but that it is all raw and factual, and in that way, Genesis falls short.

Iceciro,

Yes, there are literalist who think that every word is dictated by God even though many observant people can see that such a view is foolish. My method is: look for a message that will help me keep to my goals of life: Keep my eyes on Christ, stay in step with His way, and not look down my nose at people who have a different view of life than mine. We are all looking for meaning to our lives.  

Greywar,

You've got it exactly right up to this point.

I wonder though....when are you going to mock Allah and bash the Qur'an by way of equal time, as it were?  

Thank you LW for your heads-up on greywar. You know before I posted my comment, I did try to check his other writings, but I didn't come up with much...that might be becasue of the new JU format, don't know (or my inability to navigate around JU!)!

Ha, I have no reason to doubt you LW.

Having said that.....even so....I find quite a bit of sarcasm, but little wisdom....do you get my drift?

Well, whether or not Noah's Flood was local or worldwide is certainly debatable. Based upon a great number of other Scriptural passages, we have good indication that the Great Flood was a global event.

A few of them are:

Genesis 7:4, "For yet awhile and after seven days, I will rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights and I destroy every substance that I have made, from the face of the earth." 

V6, "and he was 600 years old when the waters of the flood overflowed the earth."

v. 18, "For they overflowed exceedingly, and filled all on the face of the earth."

v. 19 "And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered."

v22, "and all things wherein there is the breath of life on the earth, died."

Additionally, the fossil record itself supports a world-wide Flood.  There have been of all kinds of creatures that would not ordinarily be found on top of mountains all over the world.

i was going to point what you said to you. then i read your above comment. isnt that a contardiction on your part?!!!!

if you know that the text is not authentic enough... why blame God for it? .... people with souls and people without ... mud people and blood people!!!!

just asking.

even you LW? get sucked up in this false premise!!! i am surprised!!!!

everyone says "they were tested" .... there were no tests, no trials and errors .... no proof-reading ... He created them, told them the rules and the choices and the dangers then He let them live as they wish ... they chose ... and here we are ... simple isnt it?????

again people ... "that was not a test"  ..... that is the real "humans" living their lives.

LW, you know what Qura'n says about this whole thing ... i am not going to repeat it for you ... dont supress information  

it is really not that confusing or complicated ....

btw,there was no such thing as a second tree (i.e of life) ... that is part of the misinformation introduced by many texts and many authers of the current document ... it was just one forbidden tree ... not two ...

how do know that?.... humans sometimes do things Satan himself can never think of... dont underestimate how evil WE can be.... or how divine WE can be ... and that is a miracle by itself.

and God didnt hide anything either .... He told them what Satan is to them .... "your enemy" he told the two of them ... and warned them not to listen to him ... but they did ....

when the true story is told in its complete form ... there are no surprises... no contradictions... it is simple free-will action with its consequences born by the actors ... which was made very clear to them at the outset ...

  i think that will create a problem for you. If he does what you asked him to do he will get the story without any confusion or contradiction ....

and why ask him to do it ... why not you? there is nothing there to bash Lula ...

GREYWAR POSTS #11

Greywar,

This is partly correct...unfortunately there are many mistranslations of the Holy Bible out and around.....however, even so, you've come to the wrong conclusion.....AND having said that, let's take a step by step look the translation of the Holy Bible.

First, no other book in the history of the world has wielded as much influence on civilization as the Holy Bible. Why? Becasue All the Books of the Old and New Covenants (Testaments) are sacred not becasue they've been composed by human industry, and not becasue they contain Divine revelation without error, but becasue they've been written under Divine guidance through the inspiriation of the Holy Spirit, they have the one true God as their Author. The Holy Spirit inspired the human authors to write down in the manner and style of the day, what He wanted them to write, The working together of God and man in the writing of the Holy Bible iis called inspiration and it covers not only matters of faith and morals, but extends to facts of history as related to the whole Bible.

Second, the OLd Testament of which the first five Books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were considered books central to Hebraic Judaism) are called Torah in Hebrew. Torah means instruction, not just a lesson, but the kind of instruction a parent gives to a child when he wants him to obey.  

Third, while none of the original manuscripts are known to exist, some very ancient transcriptions have survived the years. The Dead Sea scrolls are an example of this and these support that later translations are correct.

The most important early translation of the Old Testament (including the first five Books known as the Torah) came to us from 72 Jewish rabbis about 250 BC. and completed about 100 BC. The translation was made for the Jews of Egypt so that they could read their sacred books in Greek, the only language that most of them understood at the time.  The Septuagint was widely used in Palestine and distributed throughoout the Mediterranean world through the first centuries of the Christian era. In 405, St.Jerome, a linguistic genius, faithfully and accurately translated the Hebrew into Latin. His translation was univerally accepted and is considered an august, sacred translation in its own right free from doctrinal error.  From St.Jerome's Latin text to the printing presses of Gutenberg, the Church through the works of dedicated monks and nuns, who tediously copied by hand had faithfully translations of Sacred Scripture. Directly from St.Jerome's Latin text, we have the English translation in the Douay Rheims Bible which is a substantially true copy of the original Hebrew.

So, no sir, with all due respect, the problem isn't a matter of erroneous translations of the original Hebrew...rather it is one of private interpretation.

The problem is that people read Sacred Scripture and misunderstand or mis-interpret (whether knowingly or unknowingly or even for purposes of sarcasm, mocking or bashing) what it means...just as you have done here...

The Chruch teaches that the private reading of the Holy Bible with reliance solely upon one's own powers of comprehension is no sure way to arrive at the Truth. Experience and blogs like this one bears out her teaching for the wildest absurdities have resulted from the theory of private interpretation of Sacred Scripture. It stands to reason that if one reads a sense into Scripture which God did not intend at all, you no longer have God's Word.

Pure and simple, much of what is written here like God doesn't know His own mind and deliberately leads men into contradictiory notions is blasphemy.